Understanding each other

Thanks to the efforts of the Embassy of Israel in Ukraine and active support of Molodist Kyiv International Film Festival, Ukraine will see Israeli cinema again.

The program includes six films from the past few years, with two of them being past year and this year’s winners of the grand prix of the Molodist festival. The cinema of Israel, which is a small, but powerful country, in terms of spirit and potential, has long time ago occupied a place among the world’s leading filmmakers, regularly winning prizes at the most prestigious international film festivals.

“The connection with Ukraine is very important, because the root of our state was born here,” Mr. Eli Belotserkovsky, an Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the State of Israel to Ukraine emphasized. “Namely culture makes people closer and opens them to each other, and cinema is one of the most available tools of mutual understanding.”

Israeli cinema has shown itself only over the past 15-30 years, but did so in such a bright way that not only feature films (24 films are released there on an annual basis), but documentaries (100 per year) and animated films too (10 hours) are in great demand at leading international festivals.

The films presented in the program of this year’s “Week of Cinema” which begins at the capital’s movie theater “Kyiv” on December 3 will be also shown in Chernivtsi, Vinnytsia, Lviv, and Dnipropetrovsk. Odesa was not included, because in autumn it hosted the Days of Israeli Culture, which also included film screenings. This is a multi-genre program. It will be opened by the winner of the 44th Molodist International Film Festival – Anywhere Else by Ester Amrami, who will come to present her work for the Ukrainian audience. The picture is trying to solve the complicated questions of relationships between the descendants of those who stood on the different sides of barricades. This is a joint production of Israel and Germany.

The Farewell Party by Tal Granit and Sharon Maymon with deep psychological analysis and soft humor broaches the question of euthanasia, which is a matter of concern of people in different corners of the world, and it doesn’t depend on nationality.

Avi Nesher’s film The Wonders will please with astounding adventures, fantastic events, and great performing work of the actors, making the audience plunge into the incredible events of the hero’s life.

In The Zohar Secret, Vladek Zankovsky in a very serious way broaches the problem whether anyone can take up the role of an arbiter of other people’s destinies.

Oren Stern in the film Hill Start in a refined comic manner tells a story of a family that united to bring to life their mother, who got into a car accident.

Tali Shalom-Ezer’s Princess, the winner of the grand prix of the 45th Molodist Festival, which has ended recently, in a harsh, open, and unbiased way focuses on the questions of relationships in an underprivileged family, where a teenager is trying to find a way out from uncomfortable situations.

“Such close cooperation with representatives of national filmmakers is honorary and necessary for us,” said director general of the Molodist International Film Festival Andrii KHALPAKHCHI, “because our festival has opened many names for the cinema world over its 45-year-long history.”